What the heck is AES/EBU - S/PDIF?

[joshybrain]

Looking for a patient soul to dumb this down for me. I've seen one or two posts close to an answer but not simple enough for me sadly.

Basically, I'm very new to this and was happy with running my guitars and mics through an PreSonus Inspire firewire box that get's my music into my computer (that's my caveman level understanding of how this all works).

I recently bought a pre-amp (tried a friend's and became convinced it really does sound better). I only wanted an analog one, but I got a good deal on one with digital outs as well and have no idea how to use that part. It has three outputs - AES/EBU, S/PDIF and optical. Back to my caveman question - How I get guitar in computer?

Without spending very much money - do I stand to gain much in terms of quality by getting some sort of interface to get one of these digital outputs into my computer or should I just use it as an analog preamp running into my PreSonus interface? Is the conversion better? Also, this may be a painfully stupid question, but why can't you just get, for example, an AES/EBU to firewire converter and go? Is there some sort of additional digital to digital conversion that has to happen before I can play with the audio in Logic or is it just a question of cable formats?

Really appreciate anyone who has the patience to explain this to me or point me to a good resource.

Cheers!

[mshilarious]

Yes, a digital conversion from S/PDIF to Firewire is necessary. It's just a data conversion, it would not affect audio quality. The Inspire is designed to be a very simple interface and does not offer any digital inputs. So if you want to use the S/PDIF out, you'll need a different interface.

[TomT]

As stated, your interface (inspire) has no digital ins. Keep in mind, you did buy an analog pre-amp but it has built in converters as a package. Have you tried the analog outs of the pre-amp to the line ins of the inspire? The difference between the pre-amps internal A/D (analog to digital converter) and the Inspire might not be that far from each other in terms of quality.

You can either let the inspire be the A/D or use the Pre-Amp A/D and get a different interface. All you would need is a simple USB style digital interface to do it cheap style.
Something like this one = http://www.sweetwater.com/store/detail/UA1EX


What is the pre-amp model you are talking about?

[dodgeaspen]

Cool stuff